29th Sunday Year A, 2023

(Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; 1^st. Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21)

In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah we learned that Israel’s God is the only Lord and Ruler of all that is, and that He even inspires certain decisively important events in the course of human history:

For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect, I the Lord have named Cyrus, though you have not known Me; I will gird you, though you have not known Me.

St. Paul in our second reading took up that appreciation of God’s authority when he wrote:

Our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, as you know what kind of persons we were among you for your sake.

Dear People of God, how Mother Church today needs such ‘persons’ whose faith is for them a source of holy power and firm conviction for the service of Jesus Who is the same yesterday, today, and for ever, and of His Church commissioned to offer salvation to all mankind!

A disturbing aspect of modern Church life, however, is the growing number of ordinary ‘little’ Catholics who are afraid to humbly confess Jesus in their daily way of life or witness openly to Him  when necessary.  They fail Jesus because His teaching is openly mocked by popular figures whose pleasures and pursuits exemplify Jesus’ words – ‘an evil and adulterous generation’ -- and mockery from their peers is indeed something that all school-children fear, perhaps most of all.

Many ‘more prominent’ figures in Mother Church herself today – acting not from fear but from arrogance and self-seeking -- betray Jesus by looking  closely at the largely pagan society around, observe what is happening there -- especially in matters of sexual morality and social responsibility -- and then try to make the Jesus we know -- the traditional Jesus of countless martyrs and saints, men, women and children, the Jesus proclaimed and fought for by St. Paul and all the Apostles in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, the Jesus of the Gospels -- and then, I say,they try to make that Jesus ‘popular’ ….  somehow able to be fitted in seamlessly with pagan society’s popular practices and ‘beliefs’!

Nowhere, dear People of God, did Jesus ever say that His disciples, His Church, would be popular, with ‘bums on all seats in their Churches’.  He did indeed say that His Gospel was to be preached to all, but not that it would be accepted by all, or even by the majority.  In fact, He did give voice to one of His most solemn and considered warnings:

            When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8)

Certain passages of our New Testament are now regularly omitted in liturgical readings; how many more will have to be omitted in future to accommodate yet more modern ‘popular  sensitivities’, to allow those whose public words or open life-style contradict the Gospel, still pretend to be acceptable to or at home with Mother Church?

There are other passages in today’s Gospel reading relevant to our times in which political violence and racial terrorism seek to cover themselves with a cloak of so-called moral sensitivity or religious devotion, for there we are clearly shown the Pharisees and the Herodians trying -- as consummate hypocrites -- to lull Jesus into a sense of false security:

Teacher, we know that You are true and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men.

They were using such flattery to soften up Jesus before the putting to Him the punch question that was ready on their lips:

Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"

The idea was, of course, to get Jesus into most serious trouble.  If He were to have said it was right to pay taxes, then those patriotic Jews and the Zealot agitators would have decried Him as some sort of traitor or quisling.  On the other hand, had Jesus said it was wrong to pay the taxes, then the Romans would have been informed immediately and they would have deemed it necessary to seek Jesus out as one potentially troublesome and deal with Him accordingly; which, of course, was just what the Pharisees and the Temple hierarchy wanted. 

Jesus was not going to fall into the trap.  He answered them:

Show Me the tax money."  So they brought Him a denarius.  And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

Oh! dear People of God, who can fail to recognize the beauty of God’s wisdom in those wonderful words spoken in such a situation?  That beauty -- both simple and sublime -- is something for us to admire and contemplate most gratefully before God!!  But now, at this moment, gathered here as disciples of Jesus wanting to learn from Him how to worship and serve the Father, let us consider something of the implications of those words and perhaps understand Jesus’ attitude of mind and heart a little better.

Those words of flattery spoken by the Pharisees and Herodians were meant to ensnare Jesus, and the attitudes they sought to promote are a perennial temptation and conceit for Christians of all ages; and today we should -- like our Blessed Lord -- be quick to recognise their poison and strong to reject their subtle infiltration into our lives.

We, as disciples of Jesus, are called to lead good lives, that is, lives of integrity before God not conformity with society’s – be it lay society or Church society -- prevailing modern standards and judgements; we have to try to live up to the role set before us in Jesus’ Scriptures and called for in the traditional teaching of Mother Church.  However, knowing full well that our sins are many and our weaknesses manifest to the eyes of God, we must seek to assimilate this awareness of faith more and more fully and deeply into our personal self-consciousness, so that our Christian integrity may ever be ‘instinctively’ accompanied and embellished by a corresponding degree of humility, truly vigilant lest we ever begin to slide into an easy acceptance of the demands or wishes of men, as ever, willing and wanting to give immediate rewards of praise for compliance with their views.

Jesus Himself was not in any way swayed by such flatteries: His personal integrity would always and only be used to glorify His Father and promote the true well-being of all those who heard and listened to His words; and so, His resolute independence of men and their opinions would be -- always and only -- the other face of His constant care to be free to serve them, for Jesus was always the Servant, never a braggart.  Nevertheless, His requirement of independence made it necessary for Him to be fearless, and so, here, He separated State and Religion for the first time.  Until Jesus came the state had been in total charge of religion: Emperors were worshipped as gods in the all-powerful Roman state.  And therefore, those famous and most beautiful words of Jesus:

Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's,   

are not only wonderfully wise words, they were also brave words for those times.

People of God, only the power of the Holy Spirit and the assured commitment to Jesus which our faith affords us can enable us to be independent and free in our proclamation of and witness to our Catholic and Christian faith before the society in which we find ourselves today.  However, we must never allow such aspirations to become insidiously perverted so as to serve our own personal pride or profit.  We are, above all, disciples and servants of Jesus, and, at all times and in all situations, we must seek -- in Him and by His Spirit -- to glorify God our Father.  Therefore, we must never forget that we are, individually, members of His People, of His family, of His Body, and consequently we can never think of ourselves as independent of our brothers and sisters in Christ: our own personal integrity and independence must be consonant with and embrace the authentic Christian good of all those for whom Christ died.   Just as true glory can only be given to God the Father in and through the whole Body of Christ, Head and members, so also, praise and profit can only come to us as living members of the whole Body of those who, in accordance with the Father's will and the working of His Holy Spirit, are being led to share in the fullness of salvation won for them by Jesus.

28th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

Isaiah 25:6-10; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy rich food and pure choice wines.  On that day it will be said: “Behold our God, to Whom we looked to save us! This is the LORD for Whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that He has saved us!”

This passage, indeed the whole of the first reading, is wonderfully suited to portray the blessings of Christianity, and by that, I mean above all, the blessings of the Catholic faith when lived with humble and sincere gratitude.

For all non-believers or nominal Christians who – as serious and sensitive human beings -- have felt the anguish of ‘not-knowing-what-to-do’ when oppressed by a vague sense of ‘wrong-ness’ in a particular situation or in their own life; who have felt the insufficiency of all merely human ideals to enable them to withstand the trials and temptations of life, which occasion that suffering captured in those words of St. Paul: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:19); who have suffered or still suffer from divisions within themselves, within family, society; for all those who have experienced, and want to learn from, such occasions of suffering and sorrow, the Catholic faith offers a most wonderful reconciliation with God, with one’s own self, and with the world: a reconciliation that brings us peace of mind and freedom of heart as it restores meaning and hope to our life, and delights us with a beauty that can inspire and thrill but never enslave.  However, the hard skin of a previous worldly, selfish and/or sensual, experience of life, can make it difficult for these wonderful blessings to penetrate through to the warm, sensitive, core of human beings as individuals intended by God.

Human beings are formed by, and live most fully in, their personal relationships; and it is in the deliberate and free gift and acceptance of personal love -- not the impulsive, driving, passion of sexual encounters -- that a human being first opens up him- or her-self for maturity.  When a man or woman gives or receives such love for the first time they are changed thereby, and life is no longer the same as it was before that encounter, which is the initial warrant and seal of one’s worth as a personal being.

It is the Eucharist which brings that glow of personal, loving, encounter, fully into prominence in the spiritual life of a Catholic; for the Eucharist is indeed a feast, a banquet, of rich food and pure, choice, wines.  For the truly stupendous fact and unfathomable meaning of the Eucharist is that Jesus, the very Son of God, made Man-for-us, there presents and renews (not repeats!) the original and eternally-enduring gift of Himself made on Calvary in His self-sacrifice-of-love to His Father for us all, and in His offer of Personal love to each and every one of us who wills to call on Him in faith and receive Him fittingly.

That gift of total love by Jesus is unique and absolutely inimitable. We human beings can only offer ourselves partially to another, and only receive another’s gift partially, though our intention be both sincere and dedicated. In the Eucharist, however, Jesus is total gift and commitment, to be initially discovered and embraced by us through the inspiration of His most Holy Spirit, a gift to be treasured life-long, by being gradually and most carefully nourished in us who receive Him by our following the teaching and guidance of Mother Church, and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit Himself.  As foreshadowed on the human level, so here most sublimely, this union of love, CHARITY, is indeed the ultimate fulfilment of one’s human being, it is the total vindication of one’s worth as an individual now become a child of God the Father, in Jesus.  For Christ comes to us that He might give us a share – chosen for us by the Father – in His Own eternal Life of Truth and Love before the Father.

All these blessings, which reach to and transfigure the core of our human being can be ours, but only through our faith in Jesus, and we have to pray that we might grow in faith precisely in order that we may ever-more deeply love, esteem, value, and respond to those blessings to which our Father invites us.

Now. that is not always easy for us since we -- like children who seek all that glitters -- are very subject to the impressions of our external senses and our inner emotions, and these can easily drive us to over-involvement in worldly concerns.  It is not wrong to be fully involved in what we undertake -- indeed St. Paul warns us against half-heartedness – but over-involvement so easily leads us to over-esteem worldly activities and under-value spiritual blessings, which we can only perceive through faith, and to which our instinctive emotions do not immediately respond.  And it is here that we must turn to our Gospel reading.

The ‘invited guests’ in Our Lord’s parable were first of all, God’s original ‘Chosen People’ established as such by their observation of the Law of Moses, and the OT covenant with God was the first invitation given them.  The King’s feast ‘prepared for the wedding of his son’ figured the Messianic feast, long foretold, and now prepared and ready.  The excuses came back thick and fast from all sides, with varying degrees of politeness: but they all had the same fundamental meaning, ‘We have more important things to do just now than come to your feast.’   And, in fact, that is the situation still today, the former ‘Chosen People’ did not accept Jesus – the incarnate Word, Son, of God – as their Messiah sent by God; they did not ‘come to the feast’ of God’s Messiah, the Eucharistic Sacrifice which we are now celebrating.  

That parable of Jesus highlights the great danger for many people today, who can come to regard earthly obligations, to value emotionally stirring activities, as supremely important, if they allow ourselves to become too wrapped-up in them; for example,  by wanting to start off too high up on the tree of life, and thus over-burdening themselves with obligations and costs that can come to stifle all other aspirations: ‘the cares of life’ as Jesus called them.

In today’s parable Jesus teaches us on the one hand that no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven by his own efforts without an invitation from God – and all of us, willingly here, have received that P/personal invitation.   And, on the other hand, Jesus tells us that no one is condemned to remain outside the Kingdom except as a result of their own willful disdain or deliberate rejection of God’s offer of love.

Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’  The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests.

People of God, a choice has to be made by all of us, a choice involving life or death; that is, a choice for life in Jesus, Who alone rose from the dead (three days in the tomb) and rose from there to eternal life, in his Ascension.  It is a choice to be made not just once but one to be re-affirmed by ourselves many, many, times over the years of our life because, as I said earlier, we ordinary human beings cannot give ourselves wholly or receive another’s gift wholly immediately.  How much more is that the case, therefore, when our love is with Jesus. Our Lord and Saviour, God the Father’s only-begotten and most beloved Son!

Let me quote some tragically beautiful, and yet so sadly mixed-up, thoughts of a modern philosopher of renown, Bertrand Russell:

“The centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain – a curious, wild pain – a searching for something transfigured and infinite.  The beatific vision—God, I do not find it.  I do not think it is to be found – but the love of it is my life.”

The only-begotten, most beloved, Son of the heavenly Father came as our Lord Jesus to save those ‘original likenesses’ of God still loved by His Father but cut off from the benefits of that love by life-preferences and practices adopted through ignorance and weakness.  Our Lord died and rose from death to save such spoiled ‘likenesses’; and ascending back to His Father in heaven He offers them the Gift of His Most Holy Spirit to enlighten their ignorance and support their weakness, and lead them, as living members of the Body of Christ on earth, Mother Church, to the fulness of earthly life and heavenly glory as ‘other Christs’ in the beatific vision divinely revealed to us in Mother Church, and so vaguely wanted and yet doubted by Russell.

27th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43)

In our first reading the prophet Isaiah described Israel as a vineyard planted by the Lord which, despite the care He had taken of it, failed to bring forth good fruit.  And for that, the prophet went on to warn Israel:

Now, I will let you know what I mean to do to my vineyard: take away its hedge, give it to grazing, break through its wall, let it be trampled!  Yes, I will make it a ruin: it shall not be pruned or hoed, but overgrown with thorns and briers; I will command the clouds not to rain upon it.  The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, the people of Judah, his cherished plant; He waited for judgment, but see, bloodshed! for justice, but hark, the outcry (hark, a cry for help!) (hark, a cry of distress!)!  

In fulfilment of this prophecy the kingdom of Israel first of all, and subsequently the kingdom of Judah, were politically destroyed: no longer kingdoms or independent political powers of any sort, both became mere tracts of territory ruled by foreign lords, inhabited by vassals.

When therefore, Jesus -- taking up again that prophecy of Isaiah -- Himself told a parable of a landowner who planted, prepared and protected a vineyard, and was then unable to get the fruit of the vineyard, His hearers --- the religious authorities in Israel and Judah at that time --- realized that His words would be of great significance for them.

And so they were, for Jesus made some most important changes to the picture originally painted by Isaiah:

The vineyard itself was fruitful (you will remember Jesus’ earlier words):

The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few.  Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.  (Mt. 9:37s.)

However, those in charge of the vineyard, the tenants, were the unfruitful ones who would not hand over any produce or profit to the landowner even though, eventually, the owner’s very son came to claim it in theme of his father.

The Jewish leaders were not, however, at that moment paying attention to details about the son: they were only intent on what they feared would be the final outcome for themselves: their power, their position of authority, might be taken away from them.

Isaiah had foretold the destruction of the political kingdoms of Israel and Judah and that prophecy had indeed been realized; kings and rulers had always resisted the messages of God’s prophets in order to maintain their own political power (haven’t kings and potentates done that since the beginning of time?).    But now, in Jesus’ time, something much more sinister was taking place: Israel’s religious leaders -- in particular the Pharisees and their Scribes --- were gainsaying Jesus in order to have control over God’s spiritual kingdom on earth for themselves, claiming a unique teaching authority for the understanding of the Mosaic Law and for the spiritual formation of God’s Chosen People.

Therefore, Jesus now speaks of the end of the cultic authority of Temple with its priests and Levites, and of the rejection of the spiritual authority of the Scribes and Pharisees as authentic exponents of the Torah; and ultimately, He foretells the end of Israel’s spiritual exaltation as the God’s Chosen People.

All these privileges -- and the provisional type of divine worship they represented -- would now have to make way for the future Church of Jesus Christ, the new and authentic People of God, comprising not only Israelites, but also all men and women of good-will who would hear Jesus’ Personal message with faith, and obey in sincerity of heart the Good News of God’s own Son authentically proclaimed to all mankind:

Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’?   Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

You can understand why Jesus was both feared and hated by the proud religious authorities of what had once been the kingdom of David: kings and people had sinned -- ignoring God’s will and the words of many great prophets – and now that former kingdom was to comprise nothing more than two small and very insignificant Roman provinces of Judea and Samaria, along with mis-trusted Galilee in the north.

Yes, they hated what had befallen their once spiritually prestigious nation; and now, this  Jesus -- coming indeed from Nazareth in Galilee-of-the-Gentiles of all places! -- was proclaiming Himself as the Son – yes, the very Son of God -- come to harvest the fruit due from the vineyard of the Law and the Prophets!! He came promising no Messianic restoration of political power, rather He came proclaiming that Israel’s hitherto unique privilege would be offered to all the presently disdained Gentiles including the despicable and most hated Romans now ruling their country, all of them pagans who had previously known nothing of the one, true, God.

However -- some might now be thinking -- all this is past history; how is it relevant for us today?  We understand that God punishes sin – He always has -- and we recall that, as punishment for the sins of His Chosen People, He once destroyed their temple at Shilo which the early Israelites had thought inviolable; and that He likewise brought the Temple of Solomon down to the ground; before finally -- as Jesus foretold -- humbling the supremely impressive and most prestigious Temple of Herod.  But, again, what does all this mean for us?  Let us, therefore, look again at those who brought about the downfall of the Chosen People.

Those responsible for the twice-repeated exiling of Israel were priests and political figures: kings, with their courtiers and sycophants, their emulators and opponents.   They did great harm to God’s People and were punished accordingly. However, they impeded  the growth of God’s Kingdom in Israel for predominantly worldly reasons.

There were others, however, the Pharisees and their Scribes, who resisted, and tried to thwart the coming and flourishing of God’s Kingdom in Israel, by deliberately attempting to take control of God’s proclamation itself; and by thus poisoning the waters of salvation offered to Israel, they became close to becoming  the subject of  these subsequent words of Jesus:

Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin,”   (Mark 3:29)

Rejected by God as leaders of His people, their  hope of salvation lay in the saving death and resurrection of Him whom they had refused to acknowledge as Messiah sent to teach, and failed to recognize as beloved Son sent to save.

People of God, today, liberal governments and all those ‘woken’ ones who proclaim their version of a new world, realm, or whatever, are now as one, shouting loud and in unison, ‘Liberty, Fraternity, Equality’ --- for the deafening of all spiritual and moral teaching of divine origin.  And for the punishment of such world-wide hatred for all that is truly spiritual, the Bible encourages us -- along with all worshippers of the one God -- to expect, God’s saving punishment for the maintenance of mankind’s eternal calling.

God’s People today are not always -- and certainly not necessarily -- satisfied by any assumed awareness of their leaders’ oneness with God’s desires and wishes for His  Church and people.  They aspire and try to follow their leaders’ teachings in the name of Jesus faithfully and whole-heartedly, and conversely, they can and do expect from those leaders some  appreciable measure of sure spiritual guidance, which appears to be hardly satisfied by, indeed to be strangely lacking in, Synodal questioning for answers from all and sundry, as if our moral problems were not matters of Mother Church’s teaching authority, but rather a sort of search for the latest Covid (=sin) variant.

My brother and sisters in Christ, we should be supremely careful of, solicitous for, the purity of our faith.   Today there are many who set themselves up as teachers, as guides, to worldly success and to temporal happiness, including the ‘trained’ government officials sent now to ‘comfort’ the bereaved, the lonely, the worried, the puzzled, the despairing …. with what?  Top echelon teachers and guides even claim to ‘know’ that God does not exist, and that nothing lies beyond death ... although such assertions are no longer backed up by that scientific knowledge which is modernity’s real pride and joy:  knowledge which they can so readily present, prove, and even demonstrate by practical experiment and sensible observation.

However, Christian spirituality -- the only authentic food for the divine fulfilment of the human soul --  is way above, and totally beyond, even the very best of such intellectual endeavours.

Today, many Catholics and Christians allow – or suffer -- themselves to be persuaded, overwhelmed, by such ‘worldly wisdom’ and its messengers.  Even more sadly, however, too many Catholics today are willing to ignore or even distort Jesus’ Good News of life eternal -- which should be treasured by faith in their own mind and heart -- for a few years of social advantage and worldly comfort, in a world that offers no future hope, no promise of peaceful inheritance.

There is, dear friends in Christ, only one true way of progress and profit for salvation, and that is given us by St. Paul, in our second reading:

Brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard in (Mother Church). Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

Let us rejoice in, give whole-hearted thanks for, such beauty and such truth.

26th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Ezekiel 18:25-28; Philippians 2:1-11; St. Matthew 21:28-32)

Throughout the history of Israel there were two great religious institutions: prophecy and priesthood. Originally, they consisted of God-given or God-called individuals; but, over many centuries, they developed into two great authorities each demanding the obedience of true Israelites: the Law of Moses, and the sacrificial worship of God in the glorious Temple of Jerusalem.

In the times of Jesus, the Law of Moses – its interpretation and practice – was the realm of the Pharisees and their Scribes; and they considered their traditions,  assembled over hundreds of years, to be inviolable.  They were the ‘accepted’ teachers of public piety and propriety for the ordinary people; accepted, that is, above all on the basis of their strict observance of material aspects of the Law’s requirements, which the ordinary, poor, people had neither time, money, nor intelligence to understand or observe.  Having seated themselves on the throne of Moses, as Jesus said, the Pharisees were not looking to God for a Messiah to come – despite the witness of many prophets – who, they feared would ‘usurp’ their proud position of supreme exponents of God’s greatest gift to Israel, the Law of Moses, by His own authentic fulfilment of God’s Law for the whole of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles.

The Temple authorities, on the other hand, were the regulators of sacrifice in Israel. Sacrifices had to be offered to the One and only God of Israel in the one and only acceptable place for traditional sacrificial offerings by Israelites whether  living at home or scattered abroad in the ‘Diaspora’.  The Temple authorities therefore – given their own often-indulged natural tendencies – were very rich and much inclined to visible manifestation of their own self importance.  Such wealth and pomposity made them -- the Sanhedrin -- ideal representatives of Israel as regards dealings with the occupying power of Rome, men of like mind and heart: always hungry and eager for greater glory and more money. 

Dear friends in Christ, Jesus was sent to offer peace and bring about unity for all who would believe in Him; peace, that is, for the new People of God, and unity in the new Church of God, to be set up by Jesus and His Apostles, a Church embracing both believing Israelites and believing Gentiles on an equal basis; and our Mass this day embraces both the prophetic and priestly traditions of ancient Israel, for the one sacrifice of love that we offer in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, is also the source of His Gift of the Spirit of God, the ultimate source of holiness for all disciples of Jesus.

In our Gospel reading we heard Jesus deflating the pompous Temple authorities in Jerusalem:

When John came to you in the way of righteousness you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did.  Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your mind and believe him.

John the Baptist had great authority with the people of Juda, throngs of them sought baptism from him in the river Jordan; and even Jesus Himself, having heard of what John was doing in the name of Israel’s God, left His home at Nazareth to witness what John was doing. The chief priests and the elders of the people, however, did not accord John any honour, despite his general renown as a remarkably brave witness to God before kings and potentates, and despite the very special reverence in which he was held by those who were truly ‘seeking the face of the God of Israel’.

It was now the same with Jesus.  Jesus had just cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem by driving out of its perimeters all those conducting business and deriving profit in the precincts of what was meant to be a sanctuary of prayer where God’s own Name dwelt in splendour.  Jesus publicly taught the people, healing many of them, and had been acclaimed by enthusiastic children with the words, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’.

When, on the following day, Jesus returned to the Temple, the chief priests and the elders confronted Him saying:

            By what authority are you doing these things?

The only authority officially recognized by those Temple authorities other than their own politico/religious authority was the forceful authority of the occupying Roman power; and they were not looking for anyone purporting to be sent by, come in the name of, God, as Saviour for Israel.  They alone could save Israel by their political skills when dealing with the Roman power.

However unwillingly, there was one other authority the Temple authorities had to recognize, and that was the authority of the Scribes and Pharisees whose traditions for the interpretation of the Law of Moses were used to denigrate and deny, the possibility of there being any other spiritual guidance for the people.  The Scribes and Pharisees also – just like the Temple authorities --- were  not looking for anyone purporting to be sent by, come in the name of, God, as Saviour for Israel, the Law of Moses was supreme for the Godly governance and guidance of Israel, it was exclusive to Israel, and they were the traditional interpreters of that Law.

Jesus was not wanted by the holy ones, ‘the do-gooders’ and woke-ones’ of those days; nor was He wanted by the Temple authorities, those in power.

He is not wanted today either.

Today’s politicians are intent on seeking popularity and influence by ‘universal credit’ policies … ‘do what you like doing, be what you want to be’… but don’t forget to thank us!!  All those do-gooders do, indeed, some measure of worldly good , but they do it out of fear of death, not out of love of God.

Christian teaching and Christian saints have always said that we should love God above else… because God was and is  acknowledged, by those who have closely experienced Him, to be good and forgiving, and His truth has always been always seen to be supremely beautiful.

Advice by this world’s do-gooders always proclaims that one must avoid death above all else, death is the ugliest, worst experience of life … it is not a gateway to heaven  they assert, but they have no corroboration.   Christianity, on the contrary has the historic testimony of the life and death of Jesus, and the experience -- in Mother Church -- of His Resurrection and of the Gift of His Holy Spirit, ever with her and in her believing children for over 2000 years.

Dear People of God, Jesus is not wanted by our Western world which today delights in its sinfulness, but JESUS IS WANTED by all faithful Catholics world-wide.  Today’s Holy Mass is our supreme witness to Jesus: for we love Him, and we need Him and His most Holy Spirit to make us ever-more one with Him, for the glory of the most wonderful Father-of-us-all Who gave His only-and-most-beloved Son to save each one of us, by His death-on-earth for us.

25th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Isaiah 55:6-9; Paul to the Philippians 1:20-24, 27; Matthew 20:1-16)

 

In our Gospel reading Jesus was teaching us about the kingdom of heaven, in which He pictured for us a most benevolent landowner trying to help local workmen in their needs. The landowner obviously represented the heavenly Father … and on realizing that, we should immediately listen to, and most carefully learn from, what he says and does, because in this parable Jesus is trying to help us come to know better and love more His heavenly Father; the Father for love of Whom, He Himself -- Jesus our Saviour and Redeemer -- embraced the Cross of Rome’s hatred, Israel’s disdain, and modern man’s indifference, with total commitment and sovereign peace.

How did Jesus therefore portray His heavenly Father in human terms for today's very ordinary everyday people?

First of all, the landowner was, and Jesus’ Father is, solicitous for and concerned about, ‘his’ people.  The landowner went out at 6am., 9am., 12noon, 3pm. and 5pm. looking for men without work, for workers needing employment to sustain their families.  Jesus is saying, ‘My Father is concerned like that, about humankind’s well-being on earth, and most of all, about the  salvation and eternal blessing of all who are My disciples, His adopted sons and daughters.

Jesus also told us that His heavenly Father is just: for He told us in the parable how the landowner took the trouble to agree with those he sought to hire about the generally accepted wage rate for the work to be done … and for the men hired later he promised to give them ‘what is just’.   You can also trust My Father, says Jesus, for the landowner kept meticulously to his promises regarding the wages to be given.

The parable’s teaching however, despite the fact that the landowner makes all possible efforts to do the good he envisaged –– is not really pleasant reading because we ourselves can understand and sympathetically feel something the disappointment felt by the earlier workers on receiving no more money than the latest comers.  And that shows that we are not fully in tune with the God and Father we worship and want to love totally in and with Jesus.

We cannot, however, I hope, in any way go along with the anger of those first workers, their antipathy towards their fellow workers who came late, nor their deep resentment as regards the landowner himself. 

Our first reading from the prophet Isaiah could have served as a warning for us when it said:

Our God Who is generous in forgiving says, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.’

There is not just a ‘world of difference’ as we would say, between God’s thoughts and ours, but rather:

As high as the heavens are above the earth … My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.’

‘My thoughts’ and ‘your ways’ ….

The landowner showed equal concern for all the men he had gone to so much trouble to hire.    At the end of the day, however, on receiving their wages, the early workers showed us – by their very first words – the poison in their hearts:

You’ve made these last one’s equal to us.

That was the very essence of their complaint ... the evangelist’s explanatory words ‘they thought that they would receive more’, are not their words!   What was really bugging – as we would say -- the first workers, was that:

You’ve made these last one’s equal to us, (whereas they should have got less than us).

And the humbling aspect of all this is that we – good Catholics and Christians though we try to be – can instinctively feel a sliver of sympathy with that attitude of the early workers:

            ‘They (the late and last comers) should have got less than us’

Dear People of God we can now understand better how Our Lord once (Mark 9:19) felt constrained to say:

            How long shall I be with you?  How long shall I put up with you?

God’s judgements ultimately are not such as to involve comparisons between human individuals’ endeavours: ‘this one has done more or less than that one’; God judges each of us according to our own deeds on this earth and ultimately, on the quality of love, earthly or heavenly, that has ruled, guided, and determined our lives.

Consider calmly and humbly, deeply, dear fellow disciples Our Lord,   what love – for your Father, your Saviour, your Guide, YOUR GOD – what love for Him  have you learnt from His Son’s life and death, what love have you allowed His most Holy Spirit to kindle in your heart for your Father in heaven?

Dear People of God, learn from Saint Paul … so very, very close to Christ,  and so alien to the ‘woke-ism’ poisoning today’s society …

            For to me, life is Christ, and death is gain!

The owner of the vineyard felt a deep compassion for those who had – through no fault of their own – been idle (and worrying?) for almost the whole day.  What good would a mere one hour’s pay be for their needs and those of their dependants? 

This is the picture which Our Lord wishes to give us of His heavenly Father Whose decisions in our regard are always motivated by His loving compassion.   That was how the work of our salvation began.  Mankind was under the cruel bondage of sin and could in no way help themselves, so God took pity on them and sent His beloved, only-begotten Son, to save them, as the owner of the vineyard had compassion for the workless labourers and their needy families.

But there is something else in the parable.  It gives us the picture of a Lord and God Who is just to all, good and gracious to all; but, to certain ones He is especially merciful.  God offers salvation to all men; His blessings and graces are amply sufficient for all; but for some chosen souls His mercy is boundless and overflowing.  Here we are introduced to the mystery of Predestination.

This mystery of our personal predestination is a very great mystery of love, not subject even to the disposition of Our Lord Himself, as Jesus said to the sons of Zebedee, James and John who asked … or whose mother asked … for places of privilege in His Kingdom:

My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at My right and at My left is not Mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father.      (Matthew 20:23)

What is ahead of each of us?  How are we to respond, to co-operate best with, so that His will be fulfilled in us, that we might thus attain to the place He, in His great love, has prepared for us and to which He calls each one of us, each and  every day, year in, year out?

St. Paul writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:12) says:

            All things are lawful for me but not all things are beneficial.

The way to life is narrow, how are you and I to walk best along that way?? 

That is a liturgy which each one of us alone can celebrate, and if we do not celebrate it, then there will be one harmonic – known to, and listened for, by the Father -- missing in the great symphony of praise rising from Mother Church to the throne of God.  These are the events, the happenings, in our lives which though they may seem ordinary enough to other people, nevertheless, we – as did Israel of old – can rightly know them, unmistakeably, as the effects of God’s great goodness towards each one of us.

Therefore, let us all, with the Church and in the Church, thank God for all the marvellous things He has done for us in Christ … and that, of course,  we do best of all here at Mass and through our reception of Holy Communion.

However, in that context, let each one of us ever treasure, meditate on, give thanks for, all those blessings which God has lavished upon us as individuals.  For in them we are granted an opportunity to see what God wishes to do for us in the future; there, is foreshadowed the outlines of that beautiful and unique relationship which God wants to have with each one of us.

Such a constant faithful and trusting relationship with God can become a fount of joyous hope and grateful love bubbling up throughout our lives.  And when we reach our end on earth, we will join the family of the blessed in heaven finally freed from their straightened earthly circumstances, possibilities, and powers, and endowed with a previously unknown ability to lose ourselves in a mind-surpassing and soul-absorbing act of gratitude and praise before God.

24th Sunday Year A, 2023

 (Ecclesiasticus 27:30-28:7; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35)

 

Our Gospel reading today is very familiar, but don't let that fact lead you into a semi-dormant ‘'we've heard all this before’' attitude of mind; for today’s short passage from the Gospel -- inspired as it is by the Holy Spirit -- leads us to a fount of purest water.  So, let us direct our particular attention to the first two verses of the Gospel reading:

Peter approached Jesus and asked Him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?"   Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times”.

Why did Jesus give such an enigmatic answer?

Because He intended to show Peter the abhorrently evil root of any wilful refusal-to-forgive, of any and every nurtured-desire-for-revenge.

Not seven times, but seventy-seven times, those words are to be found first in the book of Genesis (4:23-24), in one of Israel's most ancient traditions:

Lamech said to his wives:  "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to my utterance!  For I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for bruising me.   If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times."   

According to the Scriptures, Lamech was the great-great-great-grandson of Cain, and in the verses preceding the words I have just quoted we read of great progress being made in the quality of life for the family of Cain: a city had been built by him, and we heard of livestock being raised, of artisans making tools of all kinds from bronze and iron, and -- for times of public rejoicing and personal pleasure -- there were players of harp and flute.  As we would say today, the economy was flourishing.

But, with the growth of prosperity and greater opportunities to seek and find not only what was necessary and good but also what was pleasurable and even addictive, there came also an alarming growth in wickedness and sin.  Cain the original sinner had begged God’s protection lest he himself be killed in revenge for his murdering of his own brother Abel, an action he learned to regret.

However, when we look at his great-great-great grandson Lamech, we find him actually glorying in and boasting about the fact of his having killed a man for merely wounding him, indeed, even killing a young man or boy for simply bruising him.  Lamech’s criminally insane pride culminated in his boast that whoever crossed him would pay for it, and that he alone, Lamech -- not God! -- would decide both the price to be paid and the person to pay it.  He vaunted the irrevocability of his decision and the inevitability of its fulfilment by invoking the traditional tribal and family reverence for the founding father by those words:

If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.

Devilish pride, coupled with a vicious and vengeful attitude, characterised Lamech:  that was the way he ruled his family.  And he was not alone in that, for the society of which he was part developed along similar lines until, eventually, it called down its own destruction by the God-sent flood.  Lamech – the end or ‘culmination’ of the Cainite line -- had become a ‘pus-laden’ boil of pride and violence in the old, pre-flood, world.

Now we ourselves -- or at least some of us -- have ‘in our days’ seen, and are still hearing of, Lamech-like things in Russian aggression – or rather in Putin aggression’ – and in, for example, Sicilian Mafioso society, Mexican gang-rule and drug culture, the handful of old IRA intransigents in Northern Ireland, and going back via Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, and Idi Amin, we can still recall with horror Stalin's horrendous cruelty towards his own people, and Hitler's totally  consuming hatred for all things Jewish. 

Awareness of such depths of human depravity can, perhaps, help us appreciate more seriously something of the importance and the significance of Jesus' reply to Peter’s  somewhat jocular exaggeration :

Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?  

And, if that is the case, we may also learn to gratefully admire, and deeply rejoice in, the vision and insight of Jesus Who knew both the heights of divine wisdom to be found in but a few words of Sacred Scripture, and also the depths and horrendous possibilities of human frailty and sinfulness, if subject to Satan’s unchecked poisonous administrations. 

Peter and the Apostles had been cleansed by the word Jesus had spoken to them and they were to receive new and heavenly life by the Holy Spirit Who would be poured out upon the Church after their Lord's Death and Resurrection. In the meantime, they were being trained to proclaim and proffer His redemption to the whole of mankind, which, despite its own native frailty, was to be re-destined and endowed-anew for heavenly fulfilment in the Church of Jesus to be built on the Rock of Peter’s witness and the fidelity of the Apostles’ proclamation.  The flood-waters of destruction and death which destroyed the gross wickedness of Lamech and his world, were never to be repeated.  Many men would and will continue to destroy themselves by their headlong pursuit of power and pleasure, but the Flood was to be replaced by a far greater outpouring of waters, this time the healing waters of grace, the most sublime juice dripping from the perennially-fruitful-tree of Jesus’ Cross.  Jesus wanted Peter and the Apostles -- as He also wants us -- to realize that they must have total, absolute, confidence in the presence in their own lives, and in the Church, of the intransigent forgiveness and redemptive-power of Him Who loves us as none but He -- our only True Father -- can, by sending His Son to become-one-of-us-for-us, and by His most sublime Gift of the Holy Spirit of Truth and Power.

We are all sinners redeemed by Jesus, and even the best of us are only earthenware vessels, as St. Paul says:

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us  (2 Corinthians 4:7);

and, on the basis of that natural fragility and God-graced humility, forgiveness ought to be an absolutely basic, and therefore characteristic, Christian virtue. Unforgiving vengefulness constitutes for us a most outrageous sin and comprehensive defeat at the hands of Satan, as we heard in our first reading:

Forgive your neighbour the hurt he does you, and when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.

If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath (harbours resentment); who will forgive him his sins?

That is why Jesus, on being questioned by Peter who mentioned the number seven which, for the Jews, was a number of completion and perfection, replied so firmly:

            I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

This sort of thing goes back to the very beginning, and reaches to the very heart of man, Jesus is saying.  Recognize the signs of your adversary, Satan, whose deceits of old brought about the destruction of those he led astray into pride and viciousness, Lamech above all.  For you are called to be – in Me -- a new creation, and the perfection of that new creation must so great that seven can no longer declare, only seventy-seven can suggest, anything of the supreme wonder and beauty of the heavenly life, which can even begin here-on-earth for you and all My true disciples.

The devil is still at work, dear friends in Christ; still trying to undermine and disfigure God's new creation and your souls too; but, having seen in Lamech whither Satan would lead you, be firm against him and strong in Me and, by My Spirit in you, be prepared to forgive whoever may have -- wherever and whenever -- wronged you,

            Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.  

23rd Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20)

 

Dear fellow Catholics and Christians I must make clear for you today that our Gospel reading was written by St. Matthew for his Jewish-Christian community of the first century.  The general guidance given there is for all Christians; but the detailed and specific procedures quoted by St. Matthew were given by Jesus to Jews who, as a nation, had been prepared by God for some two thousand years in order to be able to understand and practically appreciate that teaching.  Such formal details were not intended by Jesus -- indeed are hardly possible and most certainly not obligatory -- for Catholics and devout Christians in our modern, sinful and adulterous, societies.

Let us first of all have a look at what I have just called the ‘general guidance’ for all Christians and basic to Christian morality:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.

Such was Jesus’ consistent attitude in such matters: don’t let things fester, have it out in the open; if possible, put it right without delay, with all honesty and humility.  

Such an attitude and such a solution was possible for meticulous former Pharisees or Sadducees – Matthew’s suggested Church congregation – who’s emotions were closely geared with their legal minds; and Scripture gives us the supreme example of Saint Paul literally following Jesus’ teaching by openly rebuking Saint Peter for dissimulation (Galatians 2:11-15)!

Nevertheless, for today, when people’s emotions are much more free-ranging and for immediate self-expression, it is not likely to be a generally accepted or acceptable procedure.

Jesus, however, had a much more comprehensive teaching than that specified by St. Matthew for his Church congregation; it is a teaching that Jesus committed to Saint Peter for the future Church of which he, Peter, would be the chosen head; a teaching which totally eliminates grudges nourished or retaliation planned for harm thought to have been done:

If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your  Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15;  cf. 18:22-35)

That truly radical, unique, and even still today, most astounding, demand of Jesus as regards fraternal charity among His disciples, made in those words for St. Peter’s personal  guidance, develops teaching first mentioned in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: revenge is not allowed, and if cherished is unforgiveable, for all believers in Jesus.

Think on that, dear People of God, for all gangs feed on revenge; even world-wide religions allow their supporters to practice, and pride themselves on, vengeful justification of their faith; and ‘little men’ and ‘poisoned women’ of our modern world, like to think of getting-their-own-back for offences real or imagined.

Today’s words of Saint Paul -- our Blessed Lord’s gift-to-the-nations --  are most relevant here:

            Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.

For Christian society, such love is  both the foundation and the fulfilment of the Christian way of life, as  St. Paul teaches the nations:

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function; so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. 

Love is the fulfilment of the law.  (Romans 12:4-5; 13:10)

I cannot now go on to talk with you about the nature and beauty of that  Christian love, but nevertheless we have already, dear People of God, revealed a panoramic view of the wonder of our Catholic (for precision’s sake!) faith: the power and strength, the beauty and holiness, the life-bestowing goodness and soul-cleansing truth, of God’s fatherly love for us in Jesus!

Before closing, however, let me just take-up for you that expression ‘fatherly-love’, because our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel told us of God insisting on a moral duty for Ezekiel himself that concerns all Christian parents.

As Christian parents whose marriage is dedicated to God, any children they may have are regarded as gifts from God to be loved, nurtured, and brought up for His glory and their ultimate salvation and blessing.  For that purpose Catholic and Christian parents have authority over their children which is God-given and which no government can negate; an authority before men which also begets a responsibility before God, because He has appointed them as watchman for the house of God which is their Catholic and Christian family home.  May their exercise of that personal God-given authority and power-for-good be for them a most loving work, joyful privilege, and life-long cause of heart-felt gratitude.